Dan Bull & Pirate Bay Attack the Music Charts With “Sharing Is Caring”

This week, with support from a Promo Bay campaign on The Pirate Bay, UK rap artist Dan Bull is aiming to send a message to the mainstream entertainment industry. With the release of a brand new track called "Sharing is Caring", Dan will attempt to break into the UK and international singles charts without the backing of a label and show that with the help of a free Internet and BitTorrent, there is another way.

Sharing Is Caring

Yesterday a young lad asked me, “Dan Bull in the charts? Is this a ‘fuck off’ to the record industry then?”

Good question, I thought. What do I really want to say to the entertainment industry?

When I released my first album “Safe” in 2009, I sent it to record companies and radio stations but they ignored it. When I telephoned Q magazine with a story, they told me they couldn’t write about it because they only feature artists with record deals.

In frustration at the glass ceiling that independent artists face, I started to publish protest songs on YouTube. To my surprise, they got much more coverage. I was excited, but thought “What if the labels see my tracks? They’ll never sign me now!”.

At that point, I realised something; if they didn’t want me, then the feeling was mutual. I didn’t need a record label telling me what to do, how to do it, and then keeping 80% of the takings for the privilege. I had the internet and I had my brain.

By embracing the free flow of information the internet allows, through filesharing and social media, I’ve found a worldwide fanbase without leaving the house. I’ve collaborated with artists across the globe without ever meeting them, and I can chat to my supporters whilst lying in bed eating pizza.

None of that would have been possible without file-sharing. If I followed the copyright law that lobbyists like the RIAA and the BPI insist is in the interest of artists like me, I would have no musical career. If pro-filesharing sites like TorrentFreak and The Pirate Bay didn’t share my work with you, you wouldn’t be reading this. I owe a debt of gratitude to every person that has ripped, burned, copied and shared anything I’ve done.

Sites such as The Pirate Bay do more to help unsigned artists than industry lobbyists ever have. Projects like The Promo Bay, which devotes The Pirate Bay’s home page, free of charge, to any musician who applies, creates overnight success stories.

The Pirate Bay stands defiantly in the face of corporate bullies who tout such nonsensical non-sequiters as “if you copy files, artists don’t get money, and if artists don’t get any money, they will stop making art.” This is an insult to the millions of dedicated amateur artists around the world.

What’s funny is that I’d have more respect for major labels if they just admitted what we already know – their bottom line is nothing but profit. There’s nothing wrong with that; there’s no need to hide it. But there is a need to play fair.

Entertainment lobbyists want to have their cake and eat it – they accumulated massive wealth through exploiting a free market when the means to distribute recorded art was scarce. This scarcity no longer exists – the market has moved on; and now they’re fighting to enforce artificial measures which will recreate those fleeting economic and technological conditions which allowed them to flourish.

Art has always been about sharing, adapting, and re-interpreting what you experience. Our children deserve to grow up in a world where they can enjoy this freedom without the fear that a pack of corporate lawyers will circle in and extradite them overseas.

People born in the late 80s have now lived more of their lives in the 21st century than the 20th century. A new generation has arrived for whom sharing information online is as easy and reflexive as breathing.

This generation isn’t going away; it’s growing larger all the time and to them, defunct business models developed by greying monopolists are utterly irrelevant. But these kids aren’t freeloaders or criminal masterminds, they are normal, decent people. When they hear a song or see a video that they like, they’ll post it to Facebook; they’ll Tweet it. They might remix it, or poke fun at it. This very behaviour which big entertainment claims to be the death knell of creativity, is the same behaviour that I believe will make my single a success.

“Sharing Is Caring” is a satire on this age of instant communication. It’s about what happens when things go wrong, and whether we are using the power of online communication to its full potential. Hidden somewhere in the track you can hear me urinating on a printout of the Digital Economy Act.

There are three main versions of the song – each about a different social network (Facebook, Twitter and Google+). There’s also a dubstep remix by Benny Aves and a reggae-tinged reworking by Animal Circus. I’ve also provided instrumentals and acapellas for you to remix and re-imagine at will.

I invite you to download “Sharing Is Caring” for free. If you like it, and want to support the campaign, you can choose to buy it. Each version you buy will count as a sale towards the charts. There are ten versions in all, meaning a single person can create ten sales towards the charts.

The singles charts are worthless as an indicator of quality, and artists needn’t strive for the validation of reaching them. However, by taking a free song by an unsigned artist to the echelons normally reserved for the industry elite, I want to smash the glass ceiling and show that there is another way of doing things. We don’t need the protection of ACTA, CISPA or any other acronym. As long as our internet is free, creativity will thrive.

And so, to answer the original question – I’m not shouting “fuck off” to the entertainment industry.

I’m saying “excuse me, but I think you’re in my seat”.

Links to the torrent or paid version of “Sharing Is Caring” are available here.